Social Saturday is BBQ Day V3 - How big is your meat?

Just an electric Smoke Hollow cabinet smoker.

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I wanted something basic, cheap, and electric to get my feet wet. Once I have a little more space (I live in a townhouse now) and get a little more comfortable, I'll upgrade. But for now, this is perfect for me. Everything I've done thus far has been what I'd consider restaurant-quality. Except for brisket. 3 tries and I still fuck it up. First time, I let it on too long and the bottom was hard. Like, hard to cut level hard. It was getting close and I ran up to shower quick. By the time I got back down, internal was up over 210. Next 2 times, I pulled a little too soon. I think I'm going to crutch it at a lower temp the next time.
 
I think it took me about 5 tries before I made a good brisket.
 
Just an electric Smoke Hollow cabinet smoker.


I wanted something basic, cheap, and electric to get my feet wet. Once I have a little more space (I live in a townhouse now) and get a little more comfortable, I'll upgrade. But for now, this is perfect for me. Everything I've done thus far has been what I'd consider restaurant-quality. Except for brisket. 3 tries and I still fuck it up. First time, I let it on too long and the bottom was hard. Like, hard to cut level hard. It was getting close and I ran up to shower quick. By the time I got back down, internal was up over 210. Next 2 times, I pulled a little too soon. I think I'm going to crutch it at a lower temp the next time.

You're making some good looking Q with that smoker so good stuff man. Brisket is a fickle bitch and it's a tough meat to get right and especially so if you're not able to get a choice or prime grade. I used to smoke the Wal-Mart briskets which, in my area at least, were all Select quality. The only way I could get them to come out good was going hot and fast. But now that I have access to Restaurant Depot I'm able to get CAB (Certified Angus Beef) Choice briskets which are often very well marbled I've had much juicier and consistent results.
 
Just got one

What model? Something to note is that Traeger has had an issue with the "Super Smoke" function where it completely shuts off the fan to cook at ~200°. This produces an ungodly amount of soot that gunks up the pit, as well as the food. So if your smoker has that "Super Smoke" option I would highly recommend not using it. Something that pellet cooker users do that kind of baffles me is they like to cook at 185-200° for some reason and I'll never understand it. While those consumer-end pellet smokers say they can cook at that temp I see way too often people experience flameouts. So I would personally recommend not trying to cook at under 225°.

What's your opinion on spritzing ribs, brisket, etc.

Spritzing is one of those things that I usually do, but in the end I don't think it actually does a whole lot. If you're doing a competition where every single small detail matters then I think it can help with the color, but if you've got a good rub and a good piece of meat you don't really need to spritz at all. I'm a big fan of putting the meat on and not opening the smoking chamber at all for the first couple of hours (type of meat depending). I just put a brisket on and I won't peek at that thing for at least another 4 hours. Cooking on my reverse flow offset at about 275° using pear and pecan wood.... strange mix but it works well.
 
What model? Something to note is that Traeger has had an issue with the "Super Smoke" function where it completely shuts off the fan to cook at ~200°. This produces an ungodly amount of soot that gunks up the pit, as well as the food. So if your smoker has that "Super Smoke" option I would highly recommend not using it. Something that pellet cooker users do that kind of baffles me is they like to cook at 185-200° for some reason and I'll never understand it. While those consumer-end pellet smokers say they can cook at that temp I see way too often people experience flameouts. So I would personally recommend not trying to cook at under 225°.



Spritzing is one of those things that I usually do, but in the end I don't think it actually does a whole lot. If you're doing a competition where every single small detail matters then I think it can help with the color, but if you've got a good rub and a good piece of meat you don't really need to spritz at all. I'm a big fan of putting the meat on and not opening the smoking chamber at all for the first couple of hours (type of meat depending). I just put a brisket on and I won't peek at that thing for at least another 4 hours. Cooking on my reverse flow offset at about 275° using pear and pecan wood.... strange mix but it works well.

Pro series 22. Definitely won't be smoking meats at under 225. I had heard it was better to get pellet smokers to the 250-275 range. Not sure if you had heard anything like that. Is it recommended to use a water pan at all to keep moisture up?

I had an electric masterbuilt and while I eventually figured it out and got good results, I absolutely hated cleaning it. You basically had to scrub the thing wall to wall. I also had a $350 offset charcoal grill, I basically wanted to replace both and that is why I got the Traeger.

I'm going to use it on pork ribs this weekend with the hickory, maple and cheerywood blend of pellets.
 
Spritzing is one of those things that I usually do

May I ask what you use?

I read a lot about apple juice stand alone or with vinegar/apple cider vinegar. I'm personally not a fan of apple flavored meats. Also not the biggest fan of strong vinegar sauces. So I worry about those flavors coming through, though I've read it is minimal at best.

I did some brown sugar & rub mix in water once but I was having trouble getting a consistent smoke with the masterbuilt so it wasn't a good test.

Soda spritz sounded interesting to me. Dr pepper, coke or a cherry coke/pepsi.
 
I’m going to be making a brisket this weekend. First smoke of the year. I’ll update as I go along.
 
Pro series 22. Definitely won't be smoking meats at under 225. I had heard it was better to get pellet smokers to the 250-275 range. Not sure if you had heard anything like that. Is it recommended to use a water pan at all to keep moisture up?

I had an electric masterbuilt and while I eventually figured it out and got good results, I absolutely hated cleaning it. You basically had to scrub the thing wall to wall. I also had a $350 offset charcoal grill, I basically wanted to replace both and that is why I got the Traeger.

I'm going to use it on pork ribs this weekend with the hickory, maple and cheerywood blend of pellets.

hmm.. i never scrub the inside of my masterbuilt.. just the racks and trays..
 
hmm.. i never scrub the inside of my masterbuilt.. just the racks and trays..

The bottom of mine is a mess after every use and the steam throughout the unit must have enough grease/fat in that it makes it nasty all over. Gets funky quick if I don't clean the entire thing.
 
Pro series 22. Definitely won't be smoking meats at under 225. I had heard it was better to get pellet smokers to the 250-275 range. Not sure if you had heard anything like that. Is it recommended to use a water pan at all to keep moisture up?

I had an electric masterbuilt and while I eventually figured it out and got good results, I absolutely hated cleaning it. You basically had to scrub the thing wall to wall. I also had a $350 offset charcoal grill, I basically wanted to replace both and that is why I got the Traeger.

I'm going to use it on pork ribs this weekend with the hickory, maple and cheerywood blend of pellets.

Cool, 250-275 is just fine and should provide a pretty good amount of smoke and flavor. Most pellet cookers aren't setup for a water pan so I wouldn't use one. For a water pan to be effective you need to boil the water so it can steam, and unless you are running super hot that ambient temperature isn't going to make that happen for a long time. On certain types of cookers you can put a water pan directly over the flame and have the flame kiss the bottom of that waterpan and that will boil that water quickly. So unless your pellet cooker has a water pan built into it (don't think many do) I wouldn't worry about it.

May I ask what you use?

I read a lot about apple juice stand alone or with vinegar/apple cider vinegar. I'm personally not a fan of apple flavored meats. Also not the biggest fan of strong vinegar sauces. So I worry about those flavors coming through, though I've read it is minimal at best.

I did some brown sugar & rub mix in water once but I was having trouble getting a consistent smoke with the masterbuilt so it wasn't a good test.

Soda spritz sounded interesting to me. Dr pepper, coke or a cherry coke/pepsi.

If I do spritz I go really simple with apple juice. I did end up spritzing my brisket a bit this morning as I had a bit of a temp overshoot, so I opened the door and spritzed to get the temp down a bit and add a bit more moisture. Really though the moisture was already coming out of the meat so it wasn't necessary. I've never tasted any apple flavor from an apple juice spritz, but maybe if you have a sharper palate it might leave a slight hint of a flavor. I've never tried spritzing with a soda before but there are professional BBQ cooks who do something similar with a mop, so you could be onto something.

Good luck with those ribs!
 
I’m going to be making a brisket this weekend. First smoke of the year. I’ll update as I go along.

First smoke of the year!? It's fucking May already... haha guessing you're from up north, maybe even Canada?
 
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First smoke of the year!? It's fucking May already... haha guessing you're from up north, maybe even Canada?
Actually Texas. My schedule has been insane at work. I finally have a good weekend and time to do it.
 
Smoke" function

I am running the grill now to break it in/flavor, cook off the oil or whatever is in there.

So I can see why people use the smoke setting. Fan still runs but pellets are deposited more frequently. The amount of smoke you get on normal temps is lower than I expected. So if you want a heavy smoke it needs to be on the smoke setting.

But just messing with it I've set it to 275, let it stay there for a couple minutes and then put it on the smoke setting. Currently waiting to see how long it takes to drop below 225. I might do this a few times when smoking meats.
 
I am running the grill now to break it in/flavor, cook off the oil or whatever is in there.

So I can see why people use the smoke setting. Fan still runs but pellets are deposited more frequently. The amount of smoke you get on normal temps is lower than I expected. So if you want a heavy smoke it needs to be on the smoke setting.

But just messing with it I've set it to 275, let it stay there for a couple minutes and then put it on the smoke setting. Currently waiting to see how long it takes to drop below 225. I might do this a few times when smoking meats.

The "Smoke" setting, according to Traeger, slows the deposit of pellets by doing a "15 seconds on, 65 seconds off" cycle and in doing so it tends to keep the temperature between 150-180. People having to do this kind of silly shit to get the smoke flavor they desire is why I'm pretty much not interested in pellet grills. I've seen people with the Yoder pellet grills, at $2000+ and they're adding those Amazen smoking tubes to the cook chamber. Why the hell are you going to pay that kind of money for a smoker that doesn't give you the smoke flavor you want?

Anyways, play around with it, have some fun. Lots of people say they get much better smoke flavor / aroma from different pellets... I think 2 very good brands are the Lumberjack and Smoke Ring. Also lots of people say getting a single flavor is better than a "blend" so give that a shot and see how it works.
 
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